I can still remember the day that Syria as a travel destination popped up on my radar. It was 2016 and I was staying in a truly disgusting 22 bed dorm in Puerto Princesa in the Philippines. I was chatting with a few other backpackers and one of them could not speak more highly of her travels through Syria, although of course, these travels had been undertaken before the war.

The more I learned about Syria over the years, the more I wanted to visit, but of course, it would be a great many years before such a visit was possible.

Travellers started returning to Syria in 2019, though this resurgence of tourism was promptly curbed by the global disaster of a year that was 2020. When 2022 rolled around and tourism was once again returning to Syria it seemed like the perfect time to finally get there myself.

Now, Syria is certainly not so open that you can simply fly in and out. You will need to overland into the country. It is possible to do so from Jordan, but most travellers opt to travel in and out of Beirut, which is the route that we decided to go for.

We planned to land in Beirut a few days before we were due to cross the border and if I’m honest, I hadn’t thought much about our time in Lebanon. To me, it was our jumping off point, somewhere that we would kill time for a few days – but oh how wrong I was.

Our few days in Beirut and surrounds ended up being so unbelievably fantastic and I couldn’t believe how much I fell in love with the place. To this day, I regret not allowing us more time to spend in Lebanon!

We opted to stay at the Movenpick on the beach, mostly because it was one of the few hotels bookable on booking.com that had the option to book rooms with two beds, and holy moly, did this hotel end up being gorgeous! Our room wasn’t anything super special but the sunset views from the bar were amazing and the breakfast buffet was the kind that I’ve only ever seen in far more expensive resorts.

We had two full days in Lebanon and thus we opted to book two day tours to maximise our time in the country. Our first day started with a visit to Jeita Grotto.

Jeita Grotto is famous for being the longest cave system in all of the Middle East, not only that, but the upper cave system is home to the largest known stalactite. These karst caves have formed over millions of years due to the breakdown of limestone.

Now, strictly speaking, photographs are not allowed in the caves, however our tour guide gave as a very surreptitious signal to take photos at certain locations within the caves, although she nearly had a conniption when I whipped out my camera – I think she was only expecting a few cheeky iPhone snaps – lel.

Our tour guide this day was the absolution bomb dot com so I am going to refrain from linking the company we used (although I would highly recommend them) as I don’t want her to get into any trouble!

After we had had our fill of Jeita, we actually had some time to kill, so we ended up visiting the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. This greek orthodox church is located in the city of Harissa and is undeniably beautiful. The colourful facades are the kind that you can get lost in and find the time slipping away.

Oh, and as an added bonus, the location of the church is literally right next to this viewpoint. Looking out over Beirut, it was at about this moment that I realised that that I was really going to love Lebanon.

From there we visited the shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, which I somehow can’t find any pictures of (very bizarre, I suspect SD card malfunction, luckily I had some iPhone videos which you can see below) before catching the cable car back down to sea level. This gondola of years passed was a truly fantastic way to see even more of Lebanon.

From Harissa, we then travelled to Byblos. This ancient city has been continuously inhabited since 5000BC – it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in all of the world!

In the modern day it is home to some amazing Roman and Crusader ruins and walking through the streets of the city is absolutely fantastic. There are also several shops here selling fossils that have been excavated nearby for extremely affordable prices.

After a lovely late lunch we headed back to Beirut. Dad and I grabbed a few beers at our hotels bar and got spoiled with a truly amazing sunset.

The next day was the one I was most excited for – we would be visiting the ancient city of Baalbek.

A UNESCO World Heritage site, these ruins are home to two of the most grandiose and jaw dropping Roman ruins in all of the world – and the thing that shocked me most? I’d never even heard of it until I started researching my trip to Lebanon!

It is possible to independently travel to Baalbek but for the convenience we opted for a small group tour. Once we arrived our guide pulled us to a tree and began giving us the most needlessly detailed history of the complex – I am all for giving me the deets, but when you are telling me so much that all I hear is white noise and I can’t retain a single fact, it’s just too much! I ended up quietly wandering away to explore on my own and was rapidly followed by all but two members of our group – clearly I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t vibing our guide.

Upon entrance to the complex you are met with a plethora of smaller ruins that give glimpses of the grandeur that is to come.

Before too long, you will arrive at the Temple of Jupiter. Serving as an oracle, this temple is the largest in all of history that was dedicated to Jupiter and actually, is the largest temple remaining from the Roman empire. It’s size is overwhelming.

There’s an Elle for scale in this next shot – the sheer size of these columns is incredible.

Eventually you will come across the Temple of Bacchus. Likely constructed around 1800 years ago, this phenomenally well preserved temple was dedicated to Bacchus – more commonly known as Dionysus.

At so many ruins that I’ve visited around the world, you’ve really had to use your imagination to see what they would have looked like when they were constructed (Persepolis anyone?) but at this temple you don’t need even a whiff of imagination – it’s all there for you.

Eventually, it was time to leave Baalbek and make tracks towards Anjar.

Anjar is also a UNESCO World Heritage site (it seems that Lebanon has no shortage of these) and is home to the ruins of an ancient palace city dating back to around the 8th century. The town is thought to have been established by Umayyad princes (stay tuned for the Syria series where I visit Umayyad Mosque in Damascus) and is home to some fantastic examples of Syriac architecture, including a traditional bath house.

Our group then settled in for a truly amazing lunch before heading to our final stop for the day – Ksara.

We stopped in Ksara to sample some Lebanese wines and whilst they may not have been anything super special, we had fun hanging with our newfound friends. Dad and I had initially planned to have a sunset swim at the beach in front of our hotel but after meeting some wonderful people on our tour we ended up heading to a small bar for kick ons.

It was the perfect way to end our short but incredibly sweet time in Lebanon.

THE LOWDOWN

Byblos, Jeita Grotto and Harissa day tour: I won’t list the exact company we used for this tour for reasons outlined above, but there are numerous companies offering the same tour and prices are fairly competitive at around $95 USD per person
Baalbek, Anjar and Ksara day tour: For this trip we booked with Lebanon Tours and Travels and though the tour guide may not have been my favourite, I had such a phenomenal day that I would still absolutely recommend them. The tour cost $95 USD per person and can be booked by clicking here
Movenpick Beirut: Prices start at around $190 AUD per night and overall, I highly recommend this hotel
Remember: The Lebanese currency system is highly complicated, but the basics of it are that the government has an unchanging official exchange rate but the rest of the country operates on a very different unofficial rate – under absolutely no circumstances should you ever use a card for payments while in Lebanon as you will be charged the governments exchange rate but the listed price will be based on the unofficial rate (eg. you may end up paying $50 for a $3 coffee if you use card)

At the time this post goes live Ella and I will be self driving through winter in Iceland (wish us luck, lol) so make sure to follow along on instagram (@adventurouselle) and/or tiktok (@adventurous_elle) to keep up to date with our adventures!